How to Deliver Exceptional Customer Experience in Challenging Times

While evolving customer expectations and rising labour costs are making it more difficult to deliver great customer service, these challenges present opportunities to refine and innovate our customer experiences (CX).  

Recognising and developing strategies to meet customers’ expectations is proven to drive retention and build customer loyalty, making the customer experience among the most crucial factors, alongside product and price.

In this article, we will outline what customers expect from their businesses, what you need to do to deliver great customer service, and ways to measure your customer service experience.

Contemporary Expectations for Customer Experience

Before you can improve your customer experience, you need to understand your consumer base's needs and expectations. While producing quality products, delivering them within 3-5 business days and responding to customer queries within a reasonable timeframe used to pass for a good customer service experience, in the age of next-day delivery and 24-hour customer support, customer expectations are higher than ever.

In order to deliver great customer service that meets and surpasses their expectations, you need to ensure that you can provide the following essentials:

• Updated customer profiles – Demonstrating that you know who your customers are and remembering their history with your business is essential to building trust.
• Personal interactions – From having customer service agents who speak the same language to offering bespoke solutions to specific problems, a personalised service is an excellent way to earn your customers' loyalty.
• Prompt responses – Managing customers’ queries across every channel they can contact you is no small undertaking, but is crucial to optimising your customer experience.
• Consistent resolutions – Providing the correct answer or resolving an issue the first time is important for building your consumers' confidence.

How to Deliver Great Customer Service

Whether you decide to outsource your customer services or upskill and redeploy internal resources, you need to ensure that you can provide a customer service experience that meets their expectations and accommodates for the demands on your business. While companies that have built their brand around delivering great customer service may want to develop their own offerings, businesses that lack expertise in customer service practices would be wise to outsource their services to meet industry standards.

By working with a digitally mature contact centre outsourcer, your business can benefit from their advanced systems and years of expertise, levelling the playing field such that you can compete with established industry giants. These benefits include:

• Scaled personalisation – Outsourced customer service providers can scale their support in line with your business, such that you can continue to provide your customers with the same quality of service, no matter how successful your business becomes.
• Omnichannel coordination – Engaging with your customers’ needs across channels, including self-service platforms, in-store customers, mobile apps, and online customer reviews - is crucial to providing a consistent customer experience.
• Account management – Agreeing on deliverables and metrics to be reviewed periodically can help businesses get the most out of their contact centre supplier.

How to Measure Customer Experience

Customer surveys are your greatest asset for identifying whether your customers are particularly impressed with their customer service experience, as well as for measuring other important metrics. These include:

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) – This survey prompts customers to rate their service experience, providing the clearest indicator of whether you are meeting their needs.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) – This allows you to measure the loyalty of your customers by gauging how likely they are to recommend your business to their friends, family or followers.
• First Contact Resolution (FCR) – This survey provides you with the percentage of customer queries that are resolved after their first interaction with a member of your customer support team.
• Customer Effort Score (CES) – This measures the ease with which your customers can access and use your products or services.

As the leading eCommerce logistics provider in the UK, Whistl prides itself on providing innovative solutions, tailored to the specific needs of our partners.

For more information about our approach to customer experience challenges, please contact us today or read our full article published in Business Reporter.